Dave Walsh, vice chair of MLSListings Inc. and vice president and managing broker of Alain Pinel Realtors’ Almaden office in San Jose, gave a group of 25 Canadian home builders an overview of the Santa Clara County housing market during their visit to the San Jose area this month.

Twenty-five members of the Canadian Homebuilders Association – Alberta were on a two-day housing tour of homes in Santa Clara County March 12 and 13, and learned about the Silicon Valley housing market and challenges to urban development from local speakers.

At a breakfast presentation arranged by the Silicon Valley Association of REALTORS®, Dave Walsh, vice chair of MLSListings Inc., shared local housing data with the builders. Walsh described Santa Clara County, which is at the heart of Silicon Valley, as “the single, most crazy market.”

Walsh said the region once filled with orchards, has become the leading hub of high-tech innovation and development in country. Recent growth has led to record-setting home prices. Home prices today have now exceeded the 2007 high, but there are far fewer homes on the market. Santa Clara County’s February median home price of $950,000 is “the best February ever,” said Walsh. The median is 20 percent above the median peak of $790,000 in February 2007. The problem is the county just had 1.4 months of inventory, with only 1,761 single-family homes for sale in February.

Walsh showed how home prices increase the closer one gets to Palo Alto, the central economic focal point of Silicon Valley, home to Stanford University and other prominent tech firms, and close to Facebook in neighboring Menlo Park and Google in Mountain View. Homes in Palo Alto are selling 110 percent of asking price, at an average of $1,491 per square foot. In Gilroy, which is about 50 miles from Palo Alto, homes are selling 99 percent of asking price at an average price of $284 per square feet. In Saratoga, which is about 18 miles from Palo Alto and has an excellent school district, homes are selling 102 percent of list price at an average of $812 per square foot.